The Supreme Court on Thursday pronounced that there will be no Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe in the Judge BH Loya death case.

New Delhi, Apr 19: The Supreme Court on Thursday pronounced that there will be no Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe in the Judge BH Loya death case. The order on the petitions was passed by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra. The bench also included Justice Khanwilkar and Justice Chandrachud. Dismissing the petitions, the court said that there is no merit in the petitions and that there is no reason to doubt the statements of sitting Judges. “Attempt of the petitioners was to malign the judiciary,” the apex court said while delivering its verdict.

The court observed that PILs were being “misused for settling political scores”, adding that there was “great danger” if this was allowed to continue. “An aura of good faith was sought to be created by the petitioners but as submissions progressed it fell apart,” the court said.

While pronouncing the order, the bench said that aspersions were cast on Administrative Committee of High Court, and even the judges of the Supreme Court were not spared. The apex court stated that the submissions of petitioners prima facie amounted to criminal contempt of court, but they were not taking contempt action.

“These petitioners did not uphold the rule of law. Main aim was to attack some senior functionaries of the current government. There was no question of foul play. Petition had personal interest, not public interest,” said former attorney general Mukul Rohatgi.

The apex court had earlier asked the Maharashtra Government to submit the postmortem report of the CBI judge, who had died in alleged suspicious circumstances in 2014, citing that the “matter was very serious.” Justice Loya reportedly died of a cardiac arrest in Nagpur in 2014, a day after he attended the wedding and reception of his colleague’s daughter.

Maharashtra-based journalist BS Lone and activist Tehseen Poonavala had filed independent pleas seeking a fair probe into the death of Justice Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, involving various police officers and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah.